William Lockwood

William Lockwood (William Henry Lockwood; born March 25, 1868, Old Radford, Nottinghamshire; died April 26, 1932, Old Radford, Nottinghamshire) was a fast bowler and the unpredictable, occasionally devastating counterpart to the amazingly hard-working Tom Richardson for Surrey in the early County Championship. A capable enough batsman against weaker bowling sides who scored over 10,000 runs in first-class cricket, stronger bowling tended to show flaws in his technique.

Decline

Whilst Richardson's superb work won England a difficult series in 1894/1895, Lockwood was a complete failure, being utterly unable to come to grips with the workload required under Australian conditions of pitch and climate. In fact, Lockwood never took more than one wicket in any Test innings that season, and his highest score was only 33.

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In 1895 and 1896, it was clear that Lockwood's failure in Australia was due to more than different conditions: his physical condition was clearly very poor and his weight was far too great for him to sustain first-class cricket. Only on rare occasions (for example, against Gloucestershire at the Oval in 1895) did his bowling have the sting of previous years, and apart from one innings of 158 against Warwickshire, his batting was disappointing. Lockwood was frequently dropped from the Surrey eleven, and after failing in early 1897 he was never recalled and it looked as though has career was over.

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